Sabine Baring-Gould - Cornish Characters and Strange Events

Cornwall, peopled mainly by Celts, but with an infusion of English blood, stands and always has stood apart from the rest of England, much, but in a less degree, as has Wales. That which brought it into more intimate association with English thought, interests, and progress was the loss of the old Cornish tongue.

The isolation in which Cornwall had stood has tended to develop in it much originality of character; and the wildness of the coast has bred a hardy race of seamen and smugglers; the mineral wealth, moreover, drew thousands of men underground, and the underground life of the mines has a peculiar effect on mind and character: it is cramping in many ways, but it tends to develop a good deal of religious enthusiasm, that occasionally breaks forth in wild forms of fanaticism. Cornwall has produced admirable sailors, men who have won deathless renown in warfare at sea, as "Old Dreadnought" Boscawen, Pellew, Lord Exmouth, etc., and daring and adventurous smugglers, like "The King of Prussia," who combined great religious fervour with entire absence of scruple in the matter of defrauding the king's revenue. It has produced men of science who have made for themselves a world-fame, as Adams the astronomer, and Sir Humphry Davy the chemist; men who have been benefactors to their race, as Henry Trengrouse, Sir Goldsworthy Gurney, and Trevithick. It has sent forth at least one notable painter, the miner's boy Opie, and a dramatist, Samuel Foote, and a great singer in his day, Incledon. But it has not given to literature a great poet. Minor rhymes have been produced in great quantities, but none of great worth. Philosophers have issued from the mines, as Samuel Drew, eccentrics many, as Sir James Tillie, John Knill, and Daniel Gumb. And Cornwall has contributed a certain number of rascals – but fewer in number than almost any other county, if we exclude wreckers and smugglers from the catalogue of rascality.

Strange superstitions have lingered on, and one very curious story of a girl fed for years by fairies has been put on record.

It is somewhat remarkable that Cornwall has produced no musical genius of any note; and yet the Cornishman is akin to the Welshman and the Irishman.

Cornwall has certainly sent up to London and Westminster very able politicians, as Godolphin, Sir William Molesworth, and Sir John Eliot. It furnished Tyburn with a victim – Hugh Peters, the chaplain of Oliver Cromwell, a strange mixture of money-grasping, enthusiasm, and humour.

It has been the object of the author, not to retell the lives of the greatest of the sons of Cornwall, for these lives may be read in the Dictionary of National Biography , but to chronicle the stories of lesser luminaries concerning whom less is known and little is easily accessible. In this way it serves as a companion volume to Devonshire Characters ; and Cornwall in no particular falls short of Devonshire in the variety of characters it has sent forth, nor are their stories of less interest.

The author and publisher have to thank many for kind help: Mr. Percy Bate, Mr. T. R. Bolitho, Rev. A. T. Boscawen, Mr. J. A. Bridger, Mr. T. Walter Brimacombe, Mr. A. M. Broadley, Mr. R. P. Chope, Mr. Digby Collins, Mr. J. B. Cornish, Mrs. Coryton of Pentillie Castle, Miss Loveday E. Drake, Mr. E. H. W. Dunkin, f. s.a., Mr. J. D. Enys of Enys, the Rev. Wm. Iago, Mrs. H. Forbes Julian, Mrs. de Lacy Lacy, the Rev. A. H. Malan, Mr. Lewis Melville, Mr. A. H. Norway, Captain Rogers of Penrose, Mr. Thomas Seccombe, Mr. Henry Trengrouse, Mr. W. H. K. Wright, and Mr. Henry Young of Liverpool – and last, but not least, Miss Windeatt Roberts for her admirable Index to the volume.

The publisher wishes me to say that he would much like to discover the whereabouts of a full-length portrait of Sir John Call, with a view of Bodmin Gaol in the background.

William Pengelly was born at East Looe on January 12th, 1812, and was the son of the captain of a small coasting vessel and nephew of a notorious smuggler. The Pengellys had, in fact, been connected with the sea for several generations. His mother was a Prout of the same family as the famous water-colour artist.

As a child his career was almost cut short by fire. An aunt came to stay with the Pengellys, arriving a day before she was expected. Early on the following morning, when sitting in her bedroom window, wrapped in a thick woollen shawl, she saw her little nephew William rush out of the house enveloped in flames. She hurried after him, and managed to smother the fire with her woollen garment, and thus saved the child's life, though she was herself so badly burnt that she carried the scars to her dying day. The little boy had risen early, and had kindled a fire so that he might go on with his lessons before any one else was astir in the house, with the result that he set light to his clothes, and except for the premature arrival of his aunt, must certainly have been burnt to death.

At the age of twelve he went to sea. He says: —

"Our voyages were short. I do not remember an instance of being at sea more than three consecutive days; so that, except when windbound, we were almost always taking in or taking out cargo. The work was hard, but the food was abundant, and on the whole the life, though rough, was not unpleasant.

"To me – thinking nothing of the pecuniary aspects of the question – the most enjoyable occasions were those which fierce contrary winds brought us, when we had to seek some harbour of refuge. These were by no means necessarily holidays, for, if the weather were dry, advantage was taken of the enforced leisure to give our craft a thorough cleaning, or to repair her rigging, or to make up the books. Moreover, the crew employed me to write letters to their wives from their dictation. These epistles were generally of a remarkable character, and some of them remain firmly fixed in my memory. The foregoing labours disposed of, and foul winds still prevailing, we had a washing day, or, better than all, a bout of tailoring, which did not generally get beyond repairing, though occasionally the ambitious flight of making a pair of trousers was attempted. On tailoring days it was understood that my clothes should be repaired for me, in order that I might read aloud for the general benefit. We assembled in our little cabin, where the stitching and smoking went on simultaneously, and with great vigour. My poor library consisted of a Bible, the eighth volume of the Spectator , Johnson's English Dictionary , a volume of the Weekly Miscellany , the History of John Gilpin , Baron Munchausen's Travels , Walkinghame's Arithmetic , and a book of songs. My hearers were not very fastidious, but allowed me to read pretty much what I pleased, though, truth to tell, the Spectator was not a favourite; some portions of it were held to be nonsensical, and others were considered to be so lacking in truthfulness that it was generally termed the 'lying book.' This ill repute was largely due to the story of Fadlallah (No. 578). Walkinghame was by no means unpopular. I occasionally read some of the questions, and my shipmates endeavoured to solve them mentally; and as the answers were all given by the author, I had to declare who had made the nearest guess, for it was very often but little more. Of all the questions, none excited so much interest as that which asks, What will be the cost of shoeing a horse at a farthing for the first nail, two for the second, and so on in geometrical progression for thirty-two nails, and which gives for the answer a sum but little short of four and a half million pounds sterling. This was so utterly unexpected that it went far to confer on Walkinghame the same name that Fadlallah had given to the Spectator ."